Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most widely used ceramic materials, having a broad range of applications such as pigments, sensors, waste treatment, solar cells and capacitors. Nanocrystalline TiO2 ceramics have been the subject of great interest to researchers over the years. Research has been conducted in such diverse areas as TiO2 nanopowder synthesis, thin film fabrication, and the sintering of bulk ceramics. However, thus far pure TiO2 nanopowder material has seldom been used as a dielectric material for capacitor applications as it can easily be reduced, leading to devices having lower resistivity and high dielectric loss, even though the intrinsic dielectric loss of stoichiometric TiO2is very low.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a new and improved bulk TiO2 material characterized by nano-scale grain size that might contribute to the achievement of the desired overall dielectric properties for applications in high energy density capacitors. There is also a corresponding need to provide a new and improved method for fabricating a TiO2 material having a nano-scale grain size. The present invention addresses these needs.